The members of an indigenous advisory committee at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet say they are cutting ties with the organization after seven years.
The indigenous advice circle, the lawyer comprising Danielle Morrison, the Elder of two spirit Albert McLeod and the professor of the University of Winnipeg, Kevin Lamouareaux, resigned Masse along with a member of the Board by letter on Friday afternoon.
The advice circle, formed in 2018, intended to make the oldest ballet company in Canada “a more equitable, diverse and inclusive organization,” says the ballet website.
But that goal disagreed with the experience of the Circle of Advice with Management and the Board of Directors of the Ballet, said Morrison, co -founder of the advice circle.
“Essentially, what is reduced is that we have had this indigenous advice circle since 2018, and they have never invited us to have representation of the Board,” News told CBC.
“It is really difficult to provide any recommendation on the address of where the organization is going if we are not part of strategic planning.”
Morrison said the advice circle told the ballet leadership that they should have a representation of the Board in 2018 and again in 2023, but that did not happen.
He described the communication of the Circle of Advice with the Management and the Ballet Board as poor.
“The leadership and its Board are a reflection of their organization, and I’m very sorry to say that the relationship was simply there,” he said.
According to Morrison, it was requested that the group made appearances in the opening and closing ceremonies of the ballet season.
“We are not seen as equal partners. We are seen as people with whom they need to be consulted,” he said. “We are only called when we are necessary. In general, it is when something bad is happening in the organization, or its reputation could be at risk.”
Ballet ‘will listen and learn’
Morrison says he wants the ballet company to offer a formal apology to the group.
John Osler, president of the Ballet Board, said in a statement to CBC News that the company respects the decision of the advice circle and offers its gratitude for its orientation.
“We will continue to seek significant relationships within the indigenous community, we will listen and learn from what has been respectfully shared about where we must do better, and we will work with indigenous advisors and communities to find new paths for reconciliation,” he said. .
Albert McLeod, who joined the counseling circle a few years ago, says that the group wanted to participate in The hiring of the new artistic director of BalletBut nobody promised them during that process. They learned that Christopher Stowell was taking the job through the news last month.
“He has come to this because we have already been touched people really do not care what we think,” he said.
Indigenous peoples have been dancing in North America during millennia, and the advice circle was an opportunity for the ballet company to understand how the natives wanted to be represented in the company’s productions, McLeod said.
It was also an opportunity for ballet to incorporate the 94 calls to the action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and national research on indigenous and murdered women of missing women and girls to their justice to their operations.
However, says McLeod, the ballet is stuck in his own bubble.
“This is the moment of change, and it must have confidence and ability to do so, and certainly the ballet has done it for centuries, but it is not evident here.”
The end of the advice circle is also a loss for McLeod.
“I really appreciated the opportunities to see Ballet’s performances, see the dancers, art,” he said.
“Nobody [at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet] I was interested in my perspective of what I had seen at that stage for two years, in my interpretation or perspective of what I had witnessed. “
